THE NATIVE ORCHID CONFERENCE JOURNAL VOLUME 17.3 NOC Journal 2020 Vol. 17.3: Orchid Illustration: Botanical Artistry vs. Photography, History and Discussion THE NATIVE ORCHID CONFERENCE JOURNAL The Native Orchid Conference, Inc. VOLUME 17, ISSUE 3 : TABLE OF CONTENTS P. O. Box 2047 Boone, NC 28607-2047 Websites ORCHID ILLUSTRATION: www.nativeorchidconference.org BOTANICAL ARTISTRY VS. groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ nativeorchidconference PHOTOGRAPHY www.facebook.com/groups/ 460264675690/ By Rick Burian, [email protected] Officers President: Ben Rostron, Ph.D. [email protected] Vice-President: Robert Sprague FRONT COVER Isotria verticillata [email protected] Colored pencil drawing Secretary: Linnea Hanson by Scott Rawlins [email protected] Treasurer: Richard Barmore 3 Message from the President, [email protected] Ben Rostron, Ph.D. Board Members at Large 4-13 History and Discussion Rick Burian [email protected] David McAdoo [email protected] 14-45 Species Image Comparisons Jean Stefanik [email protected] 46-48 Contributing Artists Case Grant Committee Chair 49-62 Discussion on Photographic Doug Martin, Ph.D. Techniques [email protected] 63 2021 NOC Symposium, Communication Chair Bill Kress [email protected] Olympic Peninsula, WA Technical Advisor BACK COVER Cypripedium acaule Paul M. Catling, Ph.D. Painting by Kathleen Garness [email protected] Editor Chelsea Kieffer [email protected] 2 NOC Journal 2020 Vol. 17.3: Orchid Illustration: Botanical Artistry vs. Photography, History and Discussion Message from the President: Early November in Edmonton, Alberta and we just had our first significant snowfall (over 25 cm). My orchid season is over for this year: I'm left with the photographs and memories from a strange season that kept me close to home in Alberta, but led to some truly spectacular orchid finds. Some of you are lucky enough to still be able to get out and see orchids in flower. I urge you to make the most of your opportunities during these trying times. We are about two months past our first 'online' Annual General Meeting, that was 'attended' by more than 45 people. I would like to thank all our speakers for their excellent presentations: Dennis Whigham (North American Orchid Conservation Center); Monica Marcelli (George Mason University); Brandon Corder (University of Wisconsin-Madison); Noah Brooks (Grant MacEwan University); and Jeanne Rhinehart (Native Orchid Preservation and Education Society). The feedback that we received was positive. At least for a short evening the virtual meeting gave us a chance to connect and share our passion for native orchids. Volume 17.3 is all about images of orchids. Our Board Member Rick Burian has put together a masterful series of articles on Orchid Illustration focusing on the contrasting but complementary techniques of botanical artistry and orchid photography. Rick starts off with an illustrated history and discussion of botanical art. Next follows the centerpiece of the issue: comparisons of illustrations (i.e., different drawings and paintings) and photographs of 21 different orchid species! The volume closes with an extensive discussion of photographic techniques compiled from a survey of several NOC orchid photographers. This article contains a goldmine of tips, tricks, and suggestions for all orchid photographers. Many of the photographers are even captured in action! I highly recommend this edition of the Journal. It is packed with dozens of quality orchid images of all kinds and I'm sure it contains something for everyone. As always, please consider sharing your finds with us: write an article for the Journal, submit some of your photographs to our Facebook page, or send us a link to your orchid pictures on one of the many photo-sharing websites. Stay safe and healthy. Take care of yourselves, your family and your friends. Ben Rostron Edmonton, Alberta November, 2020 (P.S. Special thanks to Rick Burian for a wonderful job on this volume of the Journal) 3 NOC Journal 2020 Vol. 17.3: Orchid Illustration: Botanical Artistry vs. Photography, History and Discussion HISTORY AND DISCUSSION I am not an artist. Well, I do dabble in photography, and most will agree that a good photographer is indeed an artist. But I am referring to the art of drawing and painting, in particular illustrating natural things, specifically our native orchids. Woodland scene including Cypripedium parviflorum and Galearis spectabilis with goldenseal and yellow violets, by Judy Simon I am thrilled by an excellent photo of a flower. We spend lots of time and effort as well as money on travel and equipment to find and document the many spectacular species of orchids across the globe. It is common practice to take dozens of exposures to get that one perfect image. Thank goodness for the advent of digital photography. But sometimes I look at my best photos and still feel that some aspects of the plant are not fully portrayed. Maybe floral parts are obscured or slightly out of focus. Or maybe the background is too busy. Or shadows are distracting. Or I am not showing the non-floral parts of the plant. Perhaps the back of the petals are more interesting than the front. Or I wished that the texture was better emphasized. A drawing or a painting of an orchid can also be very satisfying and it seems that sometimes there may be advantages to them when trying to identify a plant. So I started thinking about the two means for documenting nature and the merits of each. I did a little on-line research but then decided to consult with 4 NOC Journal 2020 Vol. 17.3: Orchid Illustration: Botanical Artistry vs. Photography, History and Discussion my former college roommate Scott Rawlins, Professor Emeritus at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania. Scott holds graduate degrees in museum education and in medical and biological illustration and taught general and scientific illustration. He has been president of the American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA), the Philadelphia Society of Botanical Illustrators and the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators (GNSI). He just completed his reign as Director of Education for GNSI. I couldn’t have asked for a better resource. First a little history of botanical art and then some comparisons of drawings/paintings versus photographs. Looking in books about orchids, especially older works, one often finds drawings and paintings that clearly illustrate the beauty and complexity of the flowers. Botanical drawings have been around for over two millennia. In classical times botanical art was used in herbals to help identify plants known for medicinal properties as well as distinguish safe plants from those that were poisonous. During the Renaissance period (14th to 17th century) there was a resurgence of naturalism and with it a revival and expansion of realistic artistic representation of plants drawn from nature. Particularly in northern Europe, artists created decorative works that were notable for their attention to life-like detail. The “golden age” of botanical art occurred for about 100 years starting in the mid-1700s, during a grand era of exploration and discovery. Scientific botany developed along with the quest to find new species and often naturalists and botanists collaborated with artists on explorations around the world, because they could provide detailed and accurate depictions of newly discovered plants. Rich amateur horticulturists in Europe desired to cultivate exotic plants in their gardens and hothouses and artists were hired to accurately document the expensive acquisitions. Tulips in particular were all the rage, especially in Holland (Ben-Ari 1999). Apparently there was a period of decline in quality and popularity of botanical art for the next 100 years or so, but then another resurgence occurred about 50 years ago. Some may say that the improvements in photography may have been the stimulus, but it turns out that modern day plant collectors, in particular, orchid growers, wanted portraits of their awarded plants as well as older botanical prints. And, with the increased interest in gardening and our environment, creating botanical art is also more appealing. Maybe it is a desire to return to a simpler life and an appreciation for Mother Nature (Ben-Ari 1999)? My first thought was that photography is the preferred method of documenting an orchid. The image seems true to life. You don’t have to have extraordinary artistic talents (sorry, photographers). A photograph can give you instant results. The camera captures and stores details. Habitats can be included for context. All you need is a camera and film/memory cards, maybe a tripod or flash. No messy charcoal or paint. The colors and brilliance of a photo have real pizazz. You can adjust for contrast, lighting and color after the fact. It is easy to share your images. But then I started thinking about my original impressions that some aspects were not being properly portrayed. 5 NOC Journal 2020 Vol. 17.3: Orchid Illustration: Botanical Artistry vs. Photography, History and Discussion Isotria verticillata Watercolor painting by Marcia Whitmore 6 NOC Journal 2020 Vol. 17.3: Orchid Illustration: Botanical Artistry vs. Photography, History and Discussion Michelle Meyer, a biological illustrator and former ASBA president, is quoted as saying that photographs are seldom an adequate substitute for botanical illustrations: You can never get all the information about a plant in a photograph, because something's always out of focus or in a shadow, whereas in a botanical illustration you can bring every- thing into perfect focus. You can also show something of the entire life cycle of a plant. (Ben-Ari 1999) A perhaps more biased answer to this question comes from illustrator Natalya Zahn (2017): As an artist of science and nature subjects, I’m often asked what makes the work I do better than a photograph. It makes perfect sense to imagine that a direct photographic capture of an object would offer the very most accurate description of that object – and photography certainly is a brilliant format for capturing detail.